Let’s not kid ourselves: creating a brand can be complicated. (If you’re reading this, you likely know firsthand how complicated.) Not only do you need to decide what your brand stands for, what you want to provide consumers and how to convey your brand promise, you must identify who you want to use your product.

This is one of the most important decisions you can make. After all, brands are relationships, and like romantic relationships you need to make sure there are two mutually interested parties. You don't want to get into an unrequited love situation where no one is interested in what you are offering. This can be a very cold, lonely, and ultimately very unprofitable situation to be in. Healthy relationships involve two interested and equally committed parties. Unhealthy ones don’t – and rarely last long.

For many companies, nothing has historically been more important for traffic than search, making search a virtual holy grail. But for some publishers, social is fast becoming the new search.

Take the Guardian, for instance. According to Tanya Cordrey, who is the director of digital development for the news organization, "It’s only a matter of time until social overtakes search for the Guardian."

Forget 'audience', 'unique visitors' and 'page views.' Thanks to social media, more and more brands are looking to base media buys on new metrics like 'influence.'

Take, for instance, the brands that are turning to the Influencer Network put together by Condé Nast's Vogue.

AdWeek describes the Influencer Network as "a panel of some 1,000 women deemed to have sway over other women, based on how active they are on social networks like Facebook and Polyvore, a fashion site where people create collages of outfits and share them with other members."

If the numbers are any indication, publishers really like Facebook's new Like button. But should they?

For obvious reasons, Facebook is attractive to publishers, and it wants to keep it that way. It provides publishers with plenty of tools that they can use to bring Facebook-driven experiences to their websites. The Like button is one of the newest offerings for publishers but there are several reasons publishers may want to think twice about putting it on their pages.

According to the 2010 Display Advertising Study conducted by Advertiser Perceptions on behalf of Collective Media, the number of advertisers planning to increase their spend this year on site-specific ad buys is greater than the number planning to increase their spend on ad networks.

The study, which was based on interviews with 420 advertisers, found that nearly half of the advertisers interviewed planned to spend more money this year with "spending increases limited to vertical content and video sites". While ad networks are also set to be the recipients of greater spending, the number was closer to a third of respondents.